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Clinton doctor's historic house now a home to the arts By John RamseyStaff writer
CLINTON - Before Victor R. Small died in 1971, the Clinton doctor wrote in his will that he wanted his two-story home used to promote the arts.
Today, the former Greek-Revival-style house of Clinton's best-known doctor is part art gallery, part museum.
Forty-seven oil paintings from a North Carolina artist fill the downstairs rooms. In one scene, Evel Knievel is riding his motorcycle through a ring of fire. In others, Mason jars are half-filled with peppers or pickles on a red-and-white checkered background. Think Vincent Van Gogh raised in the South.
Hunter Speagle is the latest artist whose work will be on display for six weeks at the Victor R. Small House on College Street.
Speagle was born in Hickory, graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2005 and now lives in Manhattan while studying at the School of Visual Arts.
"He's a real exciting artist because he's young and contemporary," said Kara Donatelli, executive director for the Sampson Arts Council. "This is big city for a small town."
Donatelli and Speagle are trying to set a date for him to teach a painting course this month at the house.
The Arts Council already has a children's art camp and a watercolors class with Virginia artist Linda Patrick this summer.
Small was a doctor in Clinton from 1924 to 1971. Before that, he was a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, serving two years in France during World War I. That's where he met his wife, Suzanne, a Red Cross nurse.
Small also was a poet and the author of a book titled "I Knew 3,000 Lunatics."
He wrote in his will that he wanted his house used "for the purpose of promoting and furthering an interest in music, literature and the fine arts in general."
Visitors to the house can see a replica of Small's doctor's office, with its old medical tools, leather medical bags he likely used on house calls and a notebook containing his notes along with sketches of such things as chromosomes and heart chambers.
Upstairs, Small's bedroom, including his ornate wooden headboard, remains intact. His hat sits on a pair of his old boots in one corner.
"It's fun because it's historical plus it's artsy," Donatelli said.
And it's home to spirits, according to some. Donatelli says the ghost stories add some fun and intrigue to the house.
In one hallway, black and white portraits of Small and his wife hang facing opposite directions. As the story goes, Small told one of his employees never to hang the portraits so that he and his wife are facing each other.
Small and his wife didn't get along, and he told the employee that he didn't want to have to look at her through all eternity, Donatelli said. One day after his death, a woman taking care of the house hung the pictures face-to-face. The next morning, Small's picture had crashed to the floor.
Whenever something goes wrong at the house now, Donatelli jokingly asks Small what he's up to.
As for the portraits, she said, "we keep them hanging opposite to appease Dr. Small."
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